186.3.] MR. R. SWINHOE ON THE BIRDS OF CHINA. 267 



considered as three distinct species. The first I have received from 

 Mr. Blyth, the second from Siam through the kindness of Sir B. 

 Schomburgk, and I have a large series from Canton and Foochow. 

 In size, form of bill, and proportion of wings and tail-feathers, the bird 

 is as variable as in the distribution of black bars on its upper plu- 

 mage. I have skins showing quite as narrow tails as in C. rujipennis 

 of India, and others displaying even broader rectrices than in the 

 C. eurycercus from Siam. I have thus been compelled to unite them 

 together. The habits as well as the notes of the species observed 

 by myself tally closely with Jerdon's remarks, with the exception 

 of what he states of the nest. I have never found the nest domed 

 as is that of C. viridis. It is shaped like a long narrow basket, made 

 almost entirely of fresh grass, suspended in the centre of a thick 

 hedge, and usually contains four pure-white eggs, ovate and not 

 roundish as those of its small ally. This Crow-pheasant is a resident 

 bird in South China, ranging a few hundred miles above Foochow, 

 — not quite so far north, I think, as Ningpo. 



PlCID.«. 



48. YUNX TORQUILLA, L. 



Yunxjaponica, Bp. Consp. Av. p. 112. 



Summers in North China, the Araoor, Kamtschatka (v. Schrenck), 

 and Japan, and winters in South China, at which season it is very 

 common at Amoy. Lives almost entirely on ants. Specimens very 

 variable as to tints, spots, and markings. This Eastern form is 

 rather smaller, and offers a few peculiarities distinguishing it from 

 the European bird, but scarcely sufficient to cause it to be recognized 

 as anything more than a race of the European type. 



49. MicROPTERNUS FOKiENSis, Swiuhoc, P. Z. S. 1863, p. 87. 

 Allied to M. phaioceps, Blyth, of India, and M. badius. Raffles, 



of Java, which form Bonaparte and Malherbe's genus Phaiopicus. 

 Procured at Foochow, where it is a resident species, and probably 

 extends throughout Southern China. I may here remark that a 

 Sumatran specimen received from Professor Schlegel, labelled P. 

 brachyurtis, Vieill. (P. hadius, Horsf.), is much larger than my Ma- 

 lacca specimens so named by Mr. Blyth, and has the throat strongly 

 mottled with blackish brown, as is the M. gularis, Jerdon, of South 

 India and Ceylon ; but the various brown species with red spotted 

 cheeks in the male are so intimately connected by intermediate forms 

 from intermediate localities, that, like the Picus major group, they 

 cannot be regarded as more than local races. M. badiosus, Temm., of 

 Borneo, which I have also received from Professor Schlegel, seems 

 however to establish its own distinctness by the red markings of the 

 male extending in specks to the eyebrow and occiput. 



50. Gecinus canus, Gmelin. 



Picus chloris, Pallas. 



North China, about Pekin, where common ; also Amoorland 

 (v, Schrenck). 



L 



